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| Authorities investigate a home Friday, July 19, 2013, in Houston where police say four homeless men were found in deplorable conditions. Officers who responded to a call expressing concern said said they found three men locked in a garage and a fourth in the home who were malnourished and may have been being held so a captor could cash checks the men were receiving. One person was taken into custody. |
HOUSTON (AP)
-- Four men found living in "deplorable conditions" in a Houston garage
on Friday told police that they were being held captive after being
lured by promises of food and cigarettes so that their captor could cash
their public-assistance checks, authorities said.
Three
of the men were malnourished and taken to a hospital after being
discovered by officers responding to a 911 call about the home, Houston
police spokeswoman Jodi Silva said. Sgt. Steven Murdock described the
living conditions as like a "dungeon."
Investigators were still trying to determine how long the men lived there, but they said it may have been weeks.
Silva
said the men told investigators they were forced to live in the garage -
which included just one chair, no bed and a possibly malfunctioning air
conditioner - so their captor could cash their assistance checks. She
said the men were "given scraps to eat."
"They clearly stated to us they were being kept against their will," Silva said.
Silva
said one person has been detained but no charges have been filed. He
apparently did not live in the house, she said. Four women were also
found living in the house, three of whom appeared to have mental
disabilities, Silva said. She described the other woman as a caretaker.
Unlike the garage, she described the living conditions inside the home
as more normal.
A neighbor called authorities
Friday morning expressing concern about men in the house in North
Houston. Murdock, the police sergeant, said at least one of the men is a
military veteran. He described them as malnourished and "almost
invalids," saying they lived in "deplorable conditions."
Alberta
Ewing, whose brother lives next door, said the men looked "very weak"
and were hauled out on stretchers by paramedics. She said one of the men
had approached her asking for help just weeks earlier during a Fourth
of July gathering, but that she didn't take him seriously because he
wasn't crying and she
couldn't get him to explain further.
"He said, `Could you help me?'" Ewing recalled. "I said, `What's the problem?"
Neighbors
said they occasionally saw the men sitting outside. Virginia Rogers,
who lives five houses away, said she greeted them with a wave when she
drove by.
"I'm shocked," Rogers said. "I'm baffled. I didn't have a clue."
The
men were found in a working-class, residential neighborhood of
one-story, brick homes. Harris County property records show the home was
built in 1969 and is about 1,400 square feet.
Police
were going in and out of the house's bright purple door and black gate
Friday afternoon, removing evidence as neighbors stood outside watching.
A portion of the block was cordoned off with police tape.
